It's so unlike us to even read the Taste columns in the Wall Street Journal, but to read one and agree with it--that's crazy talk! Still, we can't help but give a nod to Michael Steinberger, who writes today of the media's absorption with Harvard University:
So why does Harvard continue to get so much more press than Chicago or any other American university? One possible explanation: Harvard graduates are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of American journalism. Harvard far surpasses any other university when it comes to cultivating journalistic talent, and all those Harvard-trained reporters and editors do an excellent job of keeping their alma mater in the news.
Perhaps; there's certainly a strong Harvard mafia out there, and those kids do a darn good job of advertising themselves. But that doesn't explain why the many Princeton-run pubs (Time and the New Yorker, to name just two) aren't rife with P.U. stories. Or take Steinberger's own alma mater, Haverford College, which he shares with former and current Time, Inc. bigwigs Gerry Levin and Norm Pearlstine. Why, then, don't we read more about undergrad hijinx on Philadelphia's Main Line?
Clearly there's more at work here. We see the effects of that specific personality disorder which almost universally accompanies the Harvard degree. As described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV):
The essential feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. Individuals with this disorder have a grandiose sense of self-importance. They routinely overestimate their abilities and inflate their accomplishments, appearing boastful and pretentious.
Sound familiar? We thought so, too.
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